The local newspaper reports that the adult education courses at Seaford Head, though successful, many of them over-subscribed, are threatened with closure.

Those who followed the story of the sixth form’s closure will not be surprised. If the closure is allowed to go ahead, then how can the school reasonably continue to call itself a community college?

The Guardian reports that the school leaving age is likely to be raised to 18 to keep the unemployment figures down:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/jan/05/school-leaving-age

This makes the decision to close the sixth form even more short-sighted.

“Students at Seaford Head enjoyed the best GCSE results ever achieved by the college, with the number of students with five-plus A* to C grades up by nine per cent from last year and the number with five or more good grades including English and maths up by three per cent ” says the Eastbourne Gazette.

This same year are the first to be denied sixth-form education at the school. The school is losing a great deal by sending these bright, high-achieving young people away.

Last week parents were sent a letter from the working party set up by the governors to look at the future of the sixth form at Seaford Head Community College. Unsurprisingly, they announce that the closure is to be permanent. What is unusual is their lack of any pretence at debating the arguments for a sixth form. The working party’s report is purely procedural, and doesn’t bother to argue the case for the closure. I conclude, as will many others, that the consultation was only a device to rubber-stamp a decision already taken.

There has been some press coverage of the end of sixth form education in Seaford. It is nearly a year since, after news of the closure leaked out, students and parents, with the support of local councillors and Norman Baker, the local MP. Teachers, though they expressed support privately, were too cowed to join us.

We may not have saved the sixth form, but we can be proud of what we achieved:

• we exposed the endemic mismanagement at the school;

• we challenged the cult of secrecy surrounding the way the school is run;

• we demanded that governors be accountable to parents, staff, students and the town.

Thank you, everybody who contributed, who came on the march, who helped organise the meetings, who donated money to the campaign, to the journalists who unfailingly gave us press and TV coverage, and to those local politicians who stuck with the campaign. Those who lost interest, or changed sides, may find that voters remember this at next year’s local elections.

The Brighton Argus
Sixth form closure confirmed
Disappointment at sixth form closure
Sixth form closure confirmed

I sent the response below to the consultation on the future of the sixth form. As well as arguing for the retention of the sixth form, and pointing out the serious flaws in the way the issue has been handled, I call for a fundamental change in the school’s direction and leadership.

Response to the consultation on the closure of Seaford Head Community College

Tom Roper, parent of students in Year 11 and Year 9 and convenor of Keep Seaford Head’s Sixth Form http://keepseafordheadssixthform.wordpress.com

The history of public concern

1. This consultation comes too late. It should have taken place before the governors unilaterally decided to suspend the sixth form last year. As a result, students feel betrayed and parents feel disenfranchised and alienated.

2. Large numbers of parents, students and local people supported the campaign against the closure. Many signed petitions, online and on paper. The campaign held the first demonstration in Seaford for many years, and was supported by the town council, county councillors and the local MP.

3. Many teachers also said they supported the campaign, but felt they could not say so publicly for fear of victimisation, an alarming sign of what one described as a ‘culture of fear’ in the organisation.

The benefits of a sixth form

4. The sixth form plays an important part in the academic life of a school. The example of students studying at an advanced level, and going on to university, offers benefits to the whole school. Teachers in particular appreciate the intellectual challenge of teaching their subject at that higher level.

5. There are other benefits: the sporting and cultural lives of the school are enhanced. It is unluckily that the dramatic or musical productions of recent years could have taken place without the involvement of post-16 pupils. The achievements of the netball team rest on sixth form involvement. The school’s specialist status in sports and science, much vaunted, will be under threat.

6. Behaviour too is improved by the presence of more mature students, and the currently ineffectual anti-bullying strategy is unlikely to make progress of the sixth form is closed.

7. Significant public investment in the school, achieved on the basis that the school would offer a full educational programme, will be wasted.

8. Apart from the immediate loss of teaching and other staff jobs, it will become far more difficult to attract the best teachers to the school.

Wider issues

9. I currently work in further education after some years in universities. In both sectors, we fight constantly against students’ perception that higher education is for the elite. The work we do to broaden participation is undermined by the closure of the sixth form, and by the prejudice against academic achievement shown in such remarks as the sneers at the ‘Oxbridge culture’ of sixth form work spoken by one representative of the school at the recent consultation evening.

The potential

10. The numbers enrolled in the sixth form have fallen, but the current year 11, if offered the opportunity, could well have reversed the trend. The timing of the closure is bizarre. If closure were necessary, it would have made far more sense to close when numbers were at their worst, rather than when they were recovering.

11. The demographic analysis offered as justification is insufficient as a basis for closure, and lacks the necessary long-term perspective.

Some alternatives

12. If, and it has by no means been demonstrated to be the case, a Seaford Head sixth form is not viable, one would expect the school to explore a broad range of alternatives.

13. No effort has been made to explore the possibility of keeping post-16 studies in the town in collaboration with other providers, either public sector providers elsewhere in the county, or private sector providers such as Newlands School.

14. That post-16 education is expensive is undeniable; the point is that it is money well-spent, to prepare students for higher education, for employment and to lead civilised lives

15. Some tried to defend their decision by claiming that the school had no choice and was following central and local government policy. The letter sent to parents last year announcing the suspension suggests otherwise. In it, the decision is presented as that of the governors alone. The absence of county council representatives, either elected members or officers, at the recent consultation meeting, is significant. The example of Ringmer shows that sixth forms can be viable for much smaller communities than Seaford, if they have the imaginative leadership required.

16. The derisory budget allocated to promotional activity shows that no serious effort was put into attracting students, either form Seaford, or from nearby areas. One option would be to keep the sixth form for a two-year period, to allow the necessary serious effort and resources , hitherto lacking, to be put into marketing the sixth form.

The way forward

17. Whatever decision is taken about the future of the sixth form, and many feel this consultation comes too late, the vents of this academic year have raised serious questions about the way the school is managed, questions which need to be tackled.

17.1. The school conducts its affairs in secret. It was necessary for the campaign to resort the Freedom of Information Act to see the minutes and other papers presented to meetings at which the decision was taken.

17.2. The school shows no commitment to talking to and involving parents. When I asked why parents were not consulted about the suspension decision, I was told it was because there was no ‘requirement’ to do so. It is a disgrace that the senior management of the school only talks to parents when required to by an external body.

17.3. Governors do not consider themselves accountable. In particular parent governors failed throughout to take up issues raised by those they are supposed to represent. In spite of several invitations, the principal and chair of governors refused to debate the issues in public.

17.4. The senior management of the school, in particular the principal and the chair of governors, lack the vision and leadership skills the school now needs. We urgently need a change of personnel at the top, and with it a change of direction. Without a new leadership that understands its responsibilities to students present and future, to parents and staff, and to the community as a whole, the school will continue to fail.

The need for change

18. In conclusion, in the interests of the school and of the town, fundamental changes in direction and management are necessary. I hope the school will learn from its recent experience and make those changes.

Tom Roper

2 May 2008

The meeting on the evening of Wednesday 23 April was unsatisfactory. Not one parent who spoke from the floor supported the closure, and none of the questions we raised were answered.

The school deployed a large panel to defend their decision. As well as Bob Brandley, chair of the governors, Lynton Golds, the head, and Carolyn Lambert, who chaired the meeting, there were the head of sport, a minute taker, two teaching assistants, a former parent, a tame pupil and Sheila Wiffen, head of the sixth form, but not for much longer. I’m not sure all the staff members were there willingly; several looked markedly uncomfortable and it was significant that they could not find a parent with children in year 11 to sit with them.

We were treated to a mind-bogglingly irrelevant presentation by the head of sport on plans for a sport diploma and a football academy. This, it seems, is the only post-16 activity there will be from this autumn onwards; the school has given up any hope of offering academic subjects, but hopes to save itself by offering what they inelegantly dub ‘niche’ courses. As one parent pointed out from the floor, other schools and colleges in the area already offer sport and football, so, bearing in mind Seaford Head’s lamentable failure to promote their existing courses, the initiative seems doomed. Another parent asked, but got no answer, what had happened to the school’s specialist status, which was supposed to include not only sport but also science.

There is no intention to offer anything to students who want to pursue academic subjects beyond GCSE. Students who want to go on to higher education will simply be ignored. Indeed, one of the panel, displaying the small-town philistinism that lies behind the closure, spoke disparagingly of what she called the ‘Oxbridge model’. No wonder Oxford and Cambridge have difficulty in attracting a broader range of applicants, faced with such attitudes.

Other questions included what effect the loss of the sixth form would have on teacher numbers, how the school’s ability to recruit and keep good teachers would be damaged, why the school had failed to market the sixth form in previous years, and what damage the loss of the sixth form would cause to the school’s academic and cultural life: productions such as the highly successful production of Oliver were unlikely to be possible in the future.

I questioned why the consultation had not taken place last autumn, when the important decision was taken, with no reference to parents, but got no real answer. The truth is that the school will only talk to parents when forced to.

The school’s version of the consultation meeting may be found as a pdf at:

http://www.seafordhead.e-sussex.sch.uk/pdfs/Public%20Meeting%2023%20Apr%2008%20-%20Minutes.pdf

They are bizarrely worded, and certainly don’t record my comments, or those of other parents, accurately.

Last night’s consultation meeting left the parents who attended it unsatisfied. I’ll post a fuller account as soon as I can. In the meantime, I should report that a large panel, consisting, as well as the architects of the closure of the sixth form, the head of the school Lynton Golds and the chair of the governors Robert Brandley, of some very uncomfortable looking teachers and teaching assistants, augmented by a tame parent of a student who had left the school, and a press-ganged pupil, failed to answer our questions satisfactorily, though asked repeatedly.

There was no representative from East Sussex County Council on the panel; and neither of the two county councillors were present.

The Ofsted report arrived this morning, though it is still not on the Ofsted website. It’s indicative of Ofsted’s priorities that the school’s senior management have had it for weeks.

I was naive to expect Ofsted, part of the educational establishment, to take parents’ concerns seriously. In their survey they asked questions about how well the school communicates with parents and students (answer: appallingly), but the answers to those questions do not form part of the inspection judgements. In fact, there is no analysis at all of parents’ comments, proof that when it comes to listening to parents and students, both the school and Ofsted merely go through the motions.

The report says ‘many Year 11 students already choose to continue their studies elsewhere’, a wilful misreading of the situation. Year 11 students like my son had no choice, after last autumn’s unilateral decision to suspend the sixth form.

When students return after the Easter holidays, we may know more about how many teacher and support staff jobs have been done away with. Several teachers have told me they are afraid to speak their minds under the current regime. If the teachers had been bolder, and joined parents last autumn, they might not now be losing their jobs.

As they’re nowhere to be seen on the school’s website, I’ve scanned the consultation letter and the accompanying paper.

sixthformconsultationletter.pdf
whythisdecision.pdf